Chapter 53 Entering the Other Side

At the entrance of the military warehouse, two heavy-duty soldiers lay on the ground, and the surveillance camera on the wall had been blown to pieces by a single punch.

Luo Ke had already pinpointed the exact location of the research facility and reached the base’s supply warehouse, so he no longer needed to hold back or worry about potential complications. Even if guns and artillery were to attack, he would simply plow straight through everything.

Besides, the base's main combat forces were all out either conducting rescue operations or fighting monsters; could a mere few hundred remaining personnel possibly turn the tables?

As long as these people weren't dealt with in a "nuclear-friendly" manner, there wouldn't be any problems.

True to its reputation as a US military base, the supply warehouse stretched on endlessly, with a dazzling array of all kinds of supplies neatly categorized and sorted, waiting for Luo Ke to harvest them.

As for the Free Country, Luo Ke had no intention of showing mercy. He instantly transformed into an elderly woman sweeping through a supermarket during a massive clearance sale.

Ordinary rifles and submachine guns were completely ignored; Spark City had no shortage of those whatsoever. When it came to fighting Marako-beasts, those weapons were essentially the undisputed kings of scraping by with minimal damage.

Luo Ke’s attention was firmly focused on heavy machine guns, grenades, incendiary bombs, small mortars, light mobile artillery, and the like.

Whether they were cannons or something else, Luo Ke didn't bother to distinguish them. As long as they could fit into his storage space, he didn't hesitate at all, sweeping away massive quantities of ammunition categorized by type.

The amount of ammunition he packed away was dozens of times greater than the total number of weapons; otherwise, once the ammo ran out, the weapons would become mere decorations. After all, Spark City lacked a mature arms factory, and its production capacity could at best manufacture some ordinary firearms and bullets.

He didn't take many actual artillery pieces—only three or four. Those whose mere barrel lengths reached over a dozen meters had to be abandoned.

Then, he began playing a game of filling in the blanks. He left no corner of the warehouse untouched, packing every space full of mortars, hand grenades, landmines, as well as various RPGs and artillery shells.

Just as he finished and felt quite satisfied, uninvited guests arrived.

"Drop what you're holding! Put your hands on your head and get on the ground!"

Dozens of soldiers, holding rifles and maintaining high alert, slowly spread out to surround Luo Ke.

"Hoo..."

Luo Ke curved the corners of his mouth. Wisps of scarlet mist seeped out from his pores and rapidly spread to the surroundings.

He rarely used this trick because the targets he had faced previously were mostly monsters, and monsters only grew more ferocious after being affected by the scarlet element.

However, against humans whose combat prowess was limited, inducing hallucinations was quite appropriate.

Sure enough, even though some soldiers realized something was wrong and wanted to put on their gas masks, it was already too late; all of them had inhaled at least a certain amount.

In just a few seconds, the expressions of dozens of men turned manic, as if they had been injected with ten doses of stimulants straight into their brains.

"Monsters! So many monsters!"

"What monsters? Aren't they pretty girls?"

"John, where are you? Oh God, a man-eating butt has grown out of your head! Let me help you knock it off!"

Bang—

A gunshot rang out. John’s helmet was pierced, and a bullet slammed straight into his skull.

This shot served as the ignition fuse. The crowd began firing wildly in all directions while roaring in panic and terror. Bullets flew everywhere, grazing crates of grenades several times.

Luo Ke lowered his body and strolled out leisurely from the midst of the chaotic crowd.

The personnel in the monitoring room were completely dumbfounded, staring blankly at the bizarre scene on the screen. The head of the base looked at Luo Ke with excitement, "Capture him alive! Those red mists that drive people crazy seem to be released by him. He possesses extremely high research value!"

Joseph was the highest-ranking commander here, as well as a war maniac obsessed with scientific research. This otherworldly portal had been opened precisely because of his willful stubbornness, yet he felt not the slightest bit of guilt. Instead, he glibly claimed that those who died innocently were making contributions to the advancement of scientific research.

He truly had mastered the Free Country's traditional skills of sanctimoniousness and double standards to perfection!

After leaving the military warehouse, Luo Ke considerately locked the door behind him, then quickened his pace and headed toward the deeper research facility located further down the base.

Just as he rounded a corner, two waves of soldiers surged out from the front and back, fully armed and looking like they were trying to capture Senior Entity 682.

As a frail, unarmed young scholar, Luo Ke felt this was going quite a bit too far.

Joseph stepped forward, and upon confirming that the intruder was genuinely human, he trembled with excitement, "Take him alive!"

The corners of Luo Ke’s mouth hooked upward slightly, "Arrogance and ignorance are among the shortcuts to the grave."

As his voice trailed off, he transformed into a blurry afterimage, kicking up gusts of wind in his wake. The approaching soldiers tumbled and fell in all directions.

Before they could recover their wits, Joseph was already hoisted up by his neck in Luo Ke's grasp.

Even at a time like this, Joseph wore an ecstatic expression, his face flushed red as he roared, "Shoot him! Just don't kill him! Don't mind me!"

"What a retard," Luo Ke muttered in his native tongue.

Crack—

With a forceful squeeze of his five fingers, Joseph’s cervical spine snapped.

Seeing this, the soldiers wore horrified expressions and opened fire in unison.

"How did he get close just now?!"

"What on earth is he?!"

"Why are bullets useless against him?!"

Luo Ke had no intention of lingering in battle. With a single leap, he plowed through the crowd, smashed through the elevator doors, and resolutely jumped down the elevator shaft.

Boom...

The soldiers deployed grappling hooks, intending to pursue him. The next second, a surging torrent of fire erupted from below, and the searing heat wave blew all of them backward.

Research facility.

As soon as Luo Ke stepped into this area, he felt a trace of eerie strangeness. Although mists were no longer spewing from the passages, there was a persistent urgency of being stalked, leaving him slightly short of breath.

As the area that suffered the initial attack, it was unimaginably tragic. The ground was littered with the shattered remains of soldiers, the lights flickered erratically, and spiderwebs mixed with various slimy secretions created a texture underfoot that made one's skin crawl.

Bypassing a ruined laboratory, Luo Ke stood dumbfounded. Good grief, no wonder all those monsters had managed to escape.

Beneath his feet lay an endless forest—no, a forest trampled into a wasteland.

He didn't know which giant beast had forcefully hollowed out the back of this mountain, as if tearing open a door from the inside out.

Sunlight pierced through the increasingly sparse fog, casting scattered patches of light onto the ground.

On one side of the building, there was a deep rift valley plunging into the bowels of the earth—not a canyon in the true sense, but a twisted spatial anomaly.

"The otherworldly channel." Luo Ke picked up a stone and tossed it inside.

Plop...

There were no violent turbulences, no shredding effects. It was as if it had dropped into a calm, deep pool, without emitting any overwhelmingly threatening aura.

Moreover, the surrounding edges were converging at a slow pace. Judging by the speed, this channel would likely be completely repaired in a few more hours.

Luo Ke prepared himself for an instant "homecoming" and leaped down. As long as any irresistible entity appeared, he could immediately be sheltered by the portal and return to the main world.

In the blink of an eye, the world he inhabited became completely different, as simple as stepping across a threshold.

Behind Luo Ke, a shattered space that tore the heavens apart stood upright, maintaining a dead silence.

Everything within sight was filled with mist—a fog even denser than the one in the town pervaded the entire world, desolate and despairing.

He walked silently across the barren land, encountering no giant beasts or monsters, and not even hearing a sliver of their roars.

Silence...

Under the intangible oppression, he nearly lost his composure several times, relying entirely on his willpower (and devouring power) to resist this soul-torturing mental erosion.

He walked for an unknown length of time before the fog gradually dissipated.

Luo Ke heard the faint, distant sound of ocean waves and lowered his posture.

At this moment, he was lying flat atop a cliff. In the distance lay the boundless sea blanketed by fog, profound and tranquil. On the beach below the mountain... stood four figures shrouded in dark robes.

Faintly visible were tiny tentacles drifting from the locations of their faces!